Overview
Mobaro Timesheet entries are submitted by Users on Assignments and reviewed by managers from the centralized Timesheets page in the Mobaro Backend. Once submitted, an entry can be approved, edited, or deleted. Mobaro does not have a separate Reject action — the same outcome is achieved by editing the entry to fix it or by deleting it outright. Approved entries can also be reverted to a pending state if an approval needs to be reversed.
Why this matters: Timesheets are operational data that often flow into payroll, billing, or compliance reporting. The right approval pattern keeps the data clean and timely without creating bottlenecks where managers can't move entries through quickly.
Required access: To approve, un-approve, edit other Users' entries, or delete Timesheet entries, you must be a Super User or hold a Role with the Timesheets: Administrate permission. Users without this can still create, edit, and delete their own entries.
The two states of a Timesheet entry
Every Timesheet entry sits in one of two states:
State | What it means |
Awaiting Approval | The entry has been submitted but has not yet been approved. Default state for any entry created by a non-admin User. |
Approved | The entry has been reviewed and approved by an admin (or auto-approved if the creator was an admin). Approved entries can still be edited, deleted, or un-approved later. |
Note: There is no separate Rejected state. If an entry shouldn't be approved as submitted, the right move is to edit it (correcting whatever's wrong) or delete it. See What about rejection? below.
Approving an entry
From the centralized Timesheets view
In the Mobaro Backend, navigate to Timesheets.
Use the available filters to narrow to entries you want to review (e.g., by User, date range, or Awaiting Approval state).
Select the entry (or multiple entries) you want to approve.
Click the Approve action.
Note: Super Users and Users with Timesheets: Administrate auto-approve their own Timesheet entries on submission. Their entries skip Awaiting Approval entirely and go straight to Approved.
Bulk approval
If multiple entries are selected at once, the Approve action applies to all of them in a single click. This is the fastest way to clear a batch of routine, well-formed entries — for example, an entire shift's worth of work logged correctly by a trusted team.
What about rejection?
Mobaro does not have a native Reject action with a distinct state and reason field. In practice, there are only two reasons an entry shouldn't be approved as submitted, and each has a clear path:
If the entry is wrong but the work is real → Edit it
Wrong duration, wrong Entry Type, wrong description — fix it directly. An admin editing an entry implicitly re-approves it as part of the save (the auto-approval rule, covered below). See Editing or deleting submitted Timesheet entries for the full edit flow.
If the entry shouldn't exist at all → Delete it
Duplicate, accidental, or fundamentally non-billable entries should be deleted rather than left in the system. Coordinate with the User if a deletion is unexpected so the time gets re-logged correctly elsewhere.
Best practice: For organizations that want a paper trail of what was effectively "rejected," capture the reason in an external system — a Slack thread with the User, a comment on the Assignment, or a separate Timesheet review log. Mobaro doesn't currently track rejection reasons natively.
Un-approving an entry
If an entry was approved in error or new information surfaces that would change the approval, an admin can un-approve it — reverting the entry from Approved back to Awaiting Approval. This is sometimes referred to as "rejecting the approval."
Navigate to Timesheets in the Mobaro Backend.
Filter or search to the approved entry.
Open the entry and use the un-approve action to send it back to Awaiting Approval.
Heads up: Un-approving doesn't undo any downstream actions that may have already consumed the entry. Exports, integrations, or reports that ran while the entry was approved will still reflect the approved snapshot. Time un-approvals before any payroll or billing cutoff to avoid reconciliation work.
The auto-approval rule
Critical: When an entry is edited, the editor's permission level determines what happens to the approval state.
If a User with Timesheets: Administrate edits an entry, the edit is treated as an approval — the entry becomes (or remains) Approved automatically.
If a User without Timesheets: Administrate edits an entry (their own, typically), the entry returns to Awaiting Approval and must be approved again.
This rule has two important implications:
Admins editing for correction implicitly re-approve. They don't need to also click Approve after an edit — the save itself completes the approval.
Users correcting their own entries push them back to Awaiting, even if the entry had previously been approved. Plan the workflow accordingly: if a User needs to fix something post-approval, expect another review cycle.
Best practices
Review on a regular cadence
Set a recurring window for managers to review pending Timesheets — daily for fast-moving operations, weekly for project-based work. Approval bottlenecks create reporting and payroll delays, and the longer entries sit, the harder they are to recall and validate.
Prefer editing over delete-and-recreate
If the work was real but the entry is wrong, edit it as an admin (which auto-approves it) rather than deleting and asking the User to re-create. This keeps the audit trail intact and saves the User time.
Communicate before deleting
If an entry needs to be deleted, let the User know — they may have logged time against the wrong Assignment and will need to re-log it correctly. Silent deletes mean lost time.
Best practice: Centralize Timesheet review on the Timesheets page rather than reviewing one Assignment at a time. The list view supports filtering by date, User, and approval state — much faster than drilling into each Assignment individually.
Anti-patterns to avoid
Watch out for these habits, which create operational pain:
Approving entries without reviewing them — defeats the purpose of the workflow and erodes trust in the data.
Leaving entries in Awaiting state indefinitely — creates a backlog that gets harder to review the longer it sits, and delays everything downstream.
Deleting entries silently — Users may not realize their time wasn't captured and will repeat the work elsewhere or lose it entirely.
Treating un-approval as casual — exports and integrations may have already consumed the approved data, creating reconciliation work downstream.
Forgetting the auto-approval rule — admins assuming an edit needs a separate Approve click can lead to over-clicking or confusion about state.
See also
Create a Timesheet Entry — for how Users submit entries in the first place.
Editing or deleting submitted Timesheet entries — for the full edit/delete lifecycle, including the auto-approval rule.
Reporting and exporting Timesheets — for getting Timesheet data out for payroll, billing, and audit.
Creating a Timesheet Entry Type — for setting up the Entry Types Users select when logging time.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Why doesn't Mobaro have a Reject button?
A: Mobaro's design treats Timesheet review as a binary "approve or fix" decision rather than a tri-state approve/reject/pending model. If an entry shouldn't be approved as submitted, the available actions — edit (and re-approve via the auto-approval rule) or delete — cover the practical outcomes a Reject button would deliver.
Q: Can I leave a comment on a rejected or edited entry?
A: There's no native comment field on Timesheet entries beyond the Description (which the User typically owns). For team communication about edits, use the Assignment's notes or your team's standard channel.
Q: If I un-approve an entry, can the User edit it again?
A: Yes. Once an entry is back in Awaiting Approval, the User who created it (or any admin) can edit it. After the edit, the auto-approval rule applies based on who's editing.
Q: Can I bulk-approve all entries from a specific User or date range?
A: Yes — filter the Timesheets list down to the slice you want, select the entries, and click Approve. The action applies to every selected entry in one click.
Q: Are approved Timesheets locked?
A: No. Logs are never locked. An approved entry can be edited or deleted at any time, with the auto-approval rule determining the resulting state.
Q: What happens to an approved entry if the underlying Assignment is deleted?
A: The Timesheet entry's data is retained, but the Assignment context disappears. For audit-sensitive environments, export Timesheets before archiving Assignments — see Reporting and exporting Timesheets.